[[17]] Baker, Sancta Sophia, pp. 284-286. See also Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, Bk. 2, Sec. 1, chap. viii.
[[18]] Using anger as an illustration, Father Baker enters into a detailed description of what may happen, and yet the soul be free from sin. Perhaps there is not one of us who can read the following words without a sense of deep gratitude and relief concerning not infrequent experiences of our own. He says: "A person being moved to anger, though he find an unquiet representation in the imagination, and a violent heat and motions about the heart, as likewise an aversion in sensitive nature against the person that hath given the provocation; yet if, notwithstanding, he refrains himself from breaking forth into words of impatience to which his passion would urge him, and withal contradicts designs of revenge suggested by passion, such an one, practicing internal prayer and mortification, is to esteem himself not to have consented to the motions of corrupt nature, although besides the inward motion of the appetite [i.e., the inferior will], he could not hinder marks of his passion from appearing in his eyes and the colour of his countenance."—Sancta Sophia, pp. 237-238.
[[19]] Pusey, Lenten Sermons, p. 264.
CHAPTER IX
IN THE HOUR OF BATTLE
"Like as the children of Ephraim, who being harnessed and bearing bows, turned themselves back in the day of battle."[[1]] Thus does the Psalmist recall a day of shame and humiliation in the history of God's people. Well prepared for the battle, with every hope of victory before them, the children of Ephraim failed in the hour when they faced the enemy.
Thus has it been with many souls in the spiritual warfare. We may be forewarned, we may be armed with the manifold gifts of the Spirit, and yet fail, for the preparation is not everything. When in the actual presence of the foe, the soul must smite boldly and well. The weapons God supplies must be used. Not to use a grace is to lose a grace.